A Digital Preservation for the Indonesian First Terminus

Abstract

The presence of modernization in Indonesia is supported by several factors, one of which is the railway network. Unfortunately, despite its importance in Indonesian history, the first terminus in Indonesia – namely, Semarang Station – has almost been forgotten. Conservation efforts are needed to describe the architectural evolution of Semarang Station, which can provide a lens to see the adaptation efforts in the development process and the global impact of the establishment of a railway network in the colony. Moreover, digital reconstruction as architectural preservation is necessary to convey the station’s historical value. Given the limited access and scarcity of architectural drawings for Semarang Station, textual sources were used to validate the information from the visual sources. The digitalization of visual data produced 2D objects that were used as the basis for making 3D models; these 2D objects were identified using textual data to see the relationship between their architectural transformation and the events related to the building. The findings of the architectural morphology analysis were then used as data to produce the 3D models, which were the main target of the digital reconstruction. The result of this process is a reconstruction of the morphology of the Semarang Station that demonstrates its historical value.